An Obadiah Slope column
Rory’s faith: Rory Stewart, former tory Minister – but so much more – was asked on The Rest Is Politics podcast he shares with ex-Labour spin doctor Alistair Campbell “What role does your faith play in your worldview and political thinking?”
Stewart’s response: “Well, very difficult because this is the point at which I become a tongue tied Tory. I think the truth is that my faith has a centrality and importance in my life, which is far bigger than anything else when I allow it to. So when I actually allow myself to really create the space for God, it seems as though it is the thing that matters most. It’s the one thing that gives meaning to life and that without it, it’s very difficult to construct meaning.
“And that so much flows from that because Christ is somebody whose message, and you put this sometimes when you say that you think he’s a bit of a lefty or a bit of a socialist as a way of saying that his social message, regardless of whether or not you believe in God or believe in Christ, is the purest, most challenging nobelist vision of what it could mean to be a human. That nobody, I think can listen to the message of that man about what he says about poverty or what about the way he died, the way he chose to give his life for other people, the extremity of his commitment to loving other people and not feel that that is the central insight into what it means to live a meaningful human life.”
That’s the quote that some Christians have run with. But as he and Alsitair go on, it is clear Stewart still struggles with a supernatural component of belief. Stewart shies away from confirming the virgin birth.
He finds religion difficult.
“If somebody says to me as they did last Sunday, Sunday before in church, want to talk cheerfully about Jesus walking through walls or making us be very literal about him turning loaves and fish into a lot or saying, if you’re sick, all you need to do is pray to Jesus and you’ll get better. I get very uncomfortable because I think God is something very certainly far beyond me.
“And I think the point about faith is that it can’t be based on certain knowledge. It wouldn’t be faith. I mean, if we knew all this, if we’d seen him walk through a wall, if we were certain about what any of these things meant, then there wouldn’t be any need for faith. But I’m very early in this whole journey, and I’m very aware that my younger self, I was a campaigning atheist, would listen to all this and think, this is absolute nonsense. This guy’s gone completely mad. And to some mystical worldview, none of the stacks up and ditto, a Christian listening to me would say, how dare he talk about Christianity when his faith is clearly quite so vague and rocky? “
Obadiah is not sure if we can dismiss Stewart as another cultural Christian. He is struggling, certainly. But he clearly believes in God, not simply as a useful ideological tool. Actually, it’s fair to think that believing in God has made Stewart’s life more complicated. On a different pod, Re-enchanting, he gave a reason for why as a publiv figure he is cautious in proclaiming faith.
“I think the US is a pretty troubling example, isn’t it? Because it’s not exactly. I mean, it would be comforting to think that’s a place where all the politicians spend all their time talking about religion and therefore they’re running a much better country. It doesn’t really feel to us, that’s the case.”
That’s the double edged sword of Christians in politics. Trump and trumpists have cast a shadow.
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Onfield prayer: while Obadiah was enthralled with the AFL gather round, Karl Faase from Olive Tree Media‘s Encounter series, spotted this:
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Moore’s Twin on the move: Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) , the clozest thing the US has to Moore College and the academic home of teachers such as Kevin Vanhoozer, Don Carson and Douglas Moo is leaving the United StaTes and heading for Canada.
Its new home is Trinity Western University in Langley a suburb of Vancouver, like TEDS part of the Evangelical Free Church.
“Trinity Evangelical once was a powerhouse among U.S. seminaries, with a full-time equivalent enrollment of 1,510 students three decades ago, ” Baptist News Glovbal reports. “According to the latest data from the Association of Theological Schools, FTE enrollment now stands at 402.
“That’s larger than many other U.S. seminaries, but the problem is this seminary is owned by a university, Trinity International University, that has faced such dire financial circumstances that it shut down all in-person classes in 2023. The university continues to offer limited online classes and operates a law school based in California.”
The university will sell its campus in Illinois to pay off its debts retaining its law school and online courses.
This move means Vancouver will have two key, internationally-well-regarded evangelical colleges – one in the west, Regent College, and TEDS in the east of the city.
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Selective outrage: A local Christian website runs a story about a UK woman sent to jail for tweeting something, not specified in their report.
“When the Bible says, ‘”‘an eye for an eye,'”‘ it means that the punishment should not outweigh the crime. It should be neither excessive nor vengeful. And yet, in the case of Lucy Connolly, it’s hard to see it as anything but excessive and vengeful.
“It’s a tragic story. Lucy was sentenced to more than two years in jail for an offensive tweet that was only live for a few hours before she deleted it herself. Now, on top of that, she’s been repeatedly denied temporary leave to see her distressed daughter and sick husband.”
However a BBC report adds context “The wife of a Conservative councillor has been jailed for 31 months after calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire.“
According to the sentencing remarks of His Honour Judge Melbourne Inman KC
Recorder of Birmingham, the actual tweet read (with dashes substituted by Obadiah) ““Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f***ing hotels full of the bastards for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these
families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist so be it”
Connolly’s post was viewed 310,000 times with 940 reposts, 58 quotes and 113 bookmarks. Judge Inman pointed out the immediate context – online misinformation about three girls deaths in northern England leading to riots across the country: “Sadly this is one of a number of cases that this court has had to deal with arising from civil unrest following the very tragic events in Southport on
the 29th July 2024. Connolly’s tweet was posted that evening.
Obadiah is no expert on sentencing, but this is surely a case of not shouting “fire”:” in a crowded theatre.
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Visiting Hell the musical: To Hadestown – the hit musical of 2025 (so far) , a jazz ladedn retelling of the greek story of Orpheus and Eurydice, to discover a Trump-like figure, Hades, leads the underworld.
Anaïs Mitchell wrote the song Why we built the wall in 2010, but when the musical made it to Broadway in 2019 the trump parallel was irresistible. In his first term, it reflected the debate over building a wall on the Mexican border, and maybe in 2025, the tarrif imbroglio.
Just maybe it was life (trump) initating art,.
Why do we build the wall?
We build the wall to keep us free That’s why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free…
How does the wall keep us free?
The wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
That’s why we build the wall…
Who do we call the enemy?
The enemy is poverty
And the wall keeps out the enemy
And we build the wall to keep us free
That’s why we build the wall
We build the wall to keep us free…
Because we have and they have not!
My children, my children
Because they want what we have got!
Because we have and they have not!
Because they want what we have got!
Echoes of Bertold Brecht, and his The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui Obadiah thinks. It might be a bit provocative to point out who Arturo Ui was a parody of, but he had a moustache.